Rarely Occurring Defects on Tinplates

Abstract

This paper deals with rarely occurring defect on the surface of the tinplates produced in the conditions of U. S. Steel Košice, s.r.o. at the cleaning section of the continuous annealing line (CAL), which was caused by burnt. Random occurrence of such surface imperfections was observed within the short period of time (two months) for various continuous annealed tinplate grades, i.e. TH415, TH435 or TH550 with the thickness of the materials in the interval of 0.172 – 0.240 mm. Surface defects caused by burnt (thermal attack) manifested in different ways. Their appearance on the sheet surface was spot with regular or irregular circle shape, as well as line with the length of up to 2 mm oriented not directly in the rolling direction. By observing of the imperfections in scanning electron microscope (SEM) it was found that the surface of the steel substrate was always compact in the defective areas with clearly visible rolling lines. Foreign material, EDS analysis of which revealed that its chemical composition was on the basis of Fe and Cr, was deposited on the surface of the base material. The appearance of the foreign material shape indicated that it was in the liquid state at the time of incidence on the steel substrate surface. Metallographic analysis from the longitudinal metallographic sections through the defective areas revealed that the substrate under the spot defect with regular circle shape had thermally influenced microstructure. Similar manifestations of the microstructure influence were observed for the line defects. In the case of the spot defect with irregular shape, the microstructure of the material was not influenced, what indicated that the particle of liquid metal was solidified at the time of incidence on the plate surface. After revising technical conditions of the cleaning section of CAL, this type of imperfection was suppressed.